70

Good

This game isn't as bad as everybody makes it out to be. The graphics is amazing as expected, but this is where the game shines. The story and game play feels linear as you are moving from one level to another. The characters are interesting enough to make up for the story.

80

A Spectacle

This is a very rare game these days, in that it comes with both great story telling, and what can be seen as nothing short of beautiful graphics.
The game is set in a world that is ruled over by supernatural beings that arbitrarily select people to be their hands on the planet. They give the people a task, and if they fail - they become doomed to haunt the planet as unthinking monsters, or become crystals.
This is one of the few Final Fantasy games where the lead protagonist is female. She defects from the army to save her sister and ends up saving the planet.
By the end of the game, I felt that I had played more a 12 hour long, interactive film. This is down to the amazing quality of the visuals, the in-depth story, and the array of realistic characters; yet it is incredibly linear. I enjoyed the new combat system, it was very reminiscent of 10-2 in that it is role based, and the levelling system reflects this - with each character having several roles they can specialise in.
To any player of previous titles, the following omissions did somewhat disappoint - There is only one sidequest in the game, which is a lengthy series of "Go there. Kill that"; the open world aspect of the game covers only one area of the game world, it is a beautifully sculpted landscape, but nothing like the free roaming available in previous games; there are no interactive shops throughout the world; and none of the characters either, you cannot talk to anyone in the game.
But for me, these were more than made up for by the story telling and the visuals.

67

Worth a play.

I've played several of the final fantasy games since PS1 and have enjoyed a few and disliked a few. While this is no-where near as good as the classics (FFIII, FFVI, FFVII & FFVIII) it is the first of the series that I have enjoyed in a long time.
The story is very linear which is a disappointment however the visuals are stunning and really do take your mind off that fact. Some of the characters, namely Sazh and Hope got on my nerves a bit but overall the characters are interesting and draw you into the adventure. The combat mechanics are also good fun and really work well, unlike some final fantasy's it's not too slow but also not too fast that you can't keep up. Some of the moves are pretty satisfying and there is a lot of strategic thinking required in some battles.
On a bad note I found myself having to spend ages grinding levels in order to be able to defeat bosses towards the end of the game and this made the whole game far to repetitive for my liking. That's the reason I never bought FFXIII - 2. Though overall I think it's a pretty good game and worth a play through.